Blooming ... better late than never ...

late bloomer : a person whose talents or capabilities are slow to develop:


When I was in sixth grade and almost 11 my voice started to change. I remember running around my grandparents’ yard and my mom started laughing. I asked what was so funny “your voice just cracked”. I blushed and didn’t think much of it but as the school year drug on I realized I was one of the first kids in class to go through puberty.

It was an embarrassing time but apparently my body thought I should get an early start. It was one of the last times that I can remember where I felt like I was ahead of the game. I don’t remember my birth mom but I always wondered if I was a late baby seeing that I was 12 pounds. I feel that set me up for my life.

The term late bloomer would seem to apply to me in many ways:

I was treated from a young age like I was an adult. My step-dad thought I should be having grown up things with grown up toys (i.e. Sleeping bags, tools, clothes, etc.). I remember my mom sneaking us off to the toy store and we would make sure that we were not found out that we went). As I grew older I thought some of the things were trivial in regards to toys.

I thought that it was my role to be a grown up and an adult. I wanted to do more the things that normal kids did and play and run around. I started working at 15 and I felt that was what you did. You worked, got married, had kids and that is just what you did.

By 24 I was divorced, still working and FINALLY came to the realization that I was gay. That is right I was a big ole HOMO. Most everyone in my life knew I was but I was late in recognizing due to a case of DENIAL. It was a strange induction to enter a whole new world at 24 and learn all the in and outs when so others were doing it at 18 or so.

I started to try and date and get to be in touch with who I was and who I am. I thought about doing many hobbies and yet I felt that unless I was working and on the go I was not able to be a respectable and working part of society.

As I started to get older I started sinking and falling into the hole of “life as an adult”. I worked and socialized, met people and wrote but almost every turn of wanting to do something more creative I was told by the people in my life and the voice in my head that I was too old or that my time had passed and that I needed to still settle down and grow up.

By the time 30 rolled around I felt that I had to continue to be the grown up and to be able to be self sufficient. On the whole I was but I was still craving something more. I had been in a band from the time I was 18-24 mostly part time when my guitarist was not using drugs. I still craved wanting to do more music, Writing, photography, etc. I felt no one I knew was on the same page as me at all and that my time had passed.

In 2005 when I was diagnosed I had to sit back and spend some time really thinking about what I wanted and what life had in store for me in the future. The first chance I had I went and bought myself a camera and started shooting. I really didn’t know what I was doing but knew it was something I had longed to do. The more I took pictures the more that people told me they loved my visions.

I stumbled a bit after a messy break-up and once again was told I would never amount to anything artistically. I lost my footing and I stumbled. Once again I jumped in to the track in my head that said that I was too old to amount to anything creatively.

The past year something has clicked in my head and snapped (in a good way). I started to gain my own confidence and somewhere I crossed the line where I started to realize that age is a number and the only one that has been holding me back is me. I have been surrounded by people in my life who ore now supportive and care that I succeed in all that I do.

I look back in my life and see that when it really comes down to it I am simply a late bloomer !!!! The best part of being a late bloomer is that I have now experienced enough in my life. I have truly grown and developed enough that I am able to actually have more and more to write about and experience.

To all the late bloomers out there … go find your time to bloom…